


How Can I Put It Into Words When I'm Only a Writer?

by atlas_white



Category: Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Angst, Gen, Violet Snicket
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:39:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atlas_white/pseuds/atlas_white
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lemony Snicket has a secret to share with Violet. He just isn't sure how he could possibly bring himself to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Can I Put It Into Words When I'm Only a Writer?

 

_Lemony Snicket and Violet Baudelaire - How Can I Put it Into Words When I'm Only a Writer?_

 

When he saw her for the first time, he wanted right away to tell her everything. She looks a little like him and a lot like her but mostly like herself, and he couldn't be more proud of her, even if he doesn't really have the right to be, and he wanted to tell her that. He wanted to tell her that it was far from coincidence that they have the same eyes, the same skin; that they frown the same way when they are deep in thought, that they both have photographic memories, that they are alike in too many small, subtle ways to count. Even something as silly as the fact that they both dislike the color pink.

When their eyes met on that day, he nearly wept. He had to turn away and compose himself before he could speak to her normally. Perhaps soon he will master the art of it, but not yet. He just can't handle the scale, the reality of it all just yet. This is really Violet, she is here and so are her siblings, and little Bea, little Bea whose little face nearly broke his heart because this is his niece and Violet and Klaus look at her as a daughter (his granddaughter?).

Lemony can't imagine what he would tell Violet, about himself, about what happened back then, all the wonderful events that led to her birth and all the unfortunate events that tore him away from her mother and made that angel on Earth feel that she had to hide Violet away from him. Words get caught in his throat and refuse to come up until he's forced to swallow them back down again.

He counts it a miracle that he found them after the shipwreck, even so many years after he stopped believing in miracles and serendipity and hope for the future. It was a second miracle that they listened to him, that they gave him a chance, that they came to stay with him. He has seen to it that they have the very best of everything, but he knows well that they cannot be bought. Only by being genuine can he earn their trust and familiarity. Just being this close to them is good enough, and to lose it would destroy him. This is the last chance Lemony has to have a family.

He can't even imagine how he's supposed to tell her, but really, Lemony thinks he probably shouldn't ever tell her, because she and her siblings have lost too much already, and if he were to tell her the truth, he's sure it would only be for selfish reasons. Because he wants her to know who he was to her mother and who he is to her, not because of Violet's desire for truth. Still, sitting at his desk with a letter set out before him, he begins to choose the words he might use, even if they are likely only to get stuck and choke him just like all the words that didn't come before. The gentle handwriting is his guide; the paper is worn from being read so many times and the words have been burned into his memory. The graceful letters blur in his vision, but even without reading them, he knows exactly what they spell.

It starts slowly, the choosing of the words.

" _Violet, I am your.…_ " No, he isn't-- don't finish that sentence, don't say that word. He never got the opportunity to be anything else but a stranger to her. It's his own fault, too, at the end of the day, because he gave Beatrice reasons to suspect him, reasons to turn him away, reasons to think he could have defected. Nevermind that business about fighting fire with fire. She'd had to protect not only herself, but her child.

" _Violet, you see, seventeen years ago.…_ " What? Seventeen years ago-- her whole life plus nine months more-- he was engaged to her mother and everything seemed perfect until it all shattered, as if their life together had been a priceless vase and someone had thrown a rock into it? Seventeen years ago he really could have been there for her if only things had been different? There's a whole history that Beatrice never told her children about. Seventeen years ago, just when everything was falling apart, Beatrice became pregnant by Lemony and he didn't know about it, and that's all he can think to say on the matter.

" _Violet, I am an idiot and your siblings are better off for not being related to me._ " It's the truth, he thinks, but he can't tell her that. In fact, if he ever does manage to tell her this secret, that's probably what _she_ would say to _him_ , and then he would be broken-hearted and so would she, and everyone would go away unhappy. She might even resent him. She might hate him, and take her family away so that he would never bother them again.

It would be much better if he didn't tell her, and she went on thinking that Bertrand was her father. That is-- he was, really, but not biologically. In that one, vital regard, Lemony is. And he feels a sense of pride and contentment as he thinks about it, even in the midst of all the pain and confusion of trying to decide whether to tell her and how. Because he may not have had all that he wished he could have had, but he and Beatrice did create this together. This incredible girl with her sharp mind and all her inventions, she's got a little bit of him in her, too.

In that way, she's a Snicket after all.

 _Violet Snicket_ \-- oh, how he wishes she could have been! There are tears stinging his eyes again and a heaviness in his chest as though his heart were made of lead. His throat feels a little tight, too, and he presses the back of his hand against his mouth as if he could stop the tears this way.

A tiny wet spot appears on the letter, and he quickly puts it aside to keep from ruining the paper. It's too important for him to allow anything to happen to it. It's Beatrice's elegant handwriting, telling him a secret, something he should have known all along-- something he did know, in the back of his mind. Lemony has always known that Violet is just the right age, just a little too old not to have been his own. Now that he's seen her face-to-face, there can be no doubt.

He can't avoid telling her. She values the truth too highly, after all she's been through, and she deserves to get it. But it's so hard, it's too hard, he's too weak, he can't stand the idea of losing her, of losing them, because then he really will have nothing left. And what will he do then? Perhaps he will finally die from grief. Would that be the right end to his story, weary as the yellowed, cracking pages of an ancient book before his fortieth birthday? Is this then his last chapter?

Lemony takes a breath and stands, walks into the library and gives Violet a very small smile, weak and forced. The smile she gives him in turn is soft, cordial. She sees him as a benefactor, a kind guardian whom she and her siblings and her baby can leave at any time; he's the last Snicket, the missing link between their families, but she doesn't know how he fits. Somehow, he just ties everything together. She doesn't know it's because of her.

He asks if he might sit down, and she invites him to, reminding him that the home is his own. But he chose it for their comfort, chose it because it has enough space and bedrooms for all of them. They are his charges, the children of his beloved Beatrice. And Violet is his own daughter.

He starts to tell her, but the words get caught just as before. Violet watches as Lemony stammers and stumbles, furrows her pale brow as he promises to tell her a secret very soon. ☆

 


End file.
